This invention is directed to improvements in container discharger for bottle conditioning apparatus such as washing apparatus for an example and in which safety mechanism is incorporated.
Heretofore, washers have been provided with a container or bottle discharge means which combined bottle guides, landing platforms and conveyor sections associated with a unit movable to stop the apparatus in response to a bottle failing to properly discharge. It is at once appreciated that in a multiple width carrier the mass of the combined components becomes quite unresponsive to rapid stopping and when the apparatus is finally stopped the bottles that have made the proper discharge are in positions where they are liable to topple if disturbed, and this can further complicate the restoration of the apparatus to continuing operation.
Prior mechanisms for handling the discharge of bottles from conditioning machines have involved the simultaneous dropping of forty or more bottles, and the structure needed to handle this mass is quite substantial and not easily moved rapidly if one or two bottles hang up and do not drop with all the others. When stoppage is achieved it may be that a component of the mechanism has been bent or moved out of proper alignment, or the bottles that have dropped successfully will topple forward as the position thereof is not sufficiently stable to resist toppling.
The general aim of this invention is to avoid and overcome these and other problems that exist or require attention so that a more efficient discharge apparatus can be provided.